The Bambi Bucket product line literally includes the right product for just about every class and model of helicopter. (Photo courtesy of SEI Industries)

SEI Industries may be famous for creating a product named Bambi, but it is anything but meek and mild on the international firefighting scene.

From an industrial park in suburban Vancouver, B.C., SEI Industries serves clients in more than 110 countries around the world. SEI prides itself on creating innovative product solutions for its customers by fostering a dynamic and flexible culture that allows SEI to continually engineer new products. The corporate motto is, “We Engineer Solutions” and it has succeeded on its promise for three decades.

SEI’s aerial division was launched in 1982 with the introduction of the original Bambi Bucket. Firefighting buckets weren’t new at the time, but SEI was the first company with a fully collapsible bucket with a pilot controlled, instant opening valve, which provided an accurate and concentrated flow of water from the bucket to the fire. The valves on existing first-generation buckets were difficult to operate and released the load in a fine spray. Through consultation with helicopter operators and government agencies in North America, SEI created a collapsible bucket with a simple gravity-actuated valve that delivered the desired volume of water onto the target.